Unlike a lot of people the most significant car in my life didn’t even belong to me. It was a black, 2002 Lincoln MKZ that belonged to my friend Max, and beyond it being one of the nicer cars that my friends owned I never gave it a second thought. I rode in that car many times through my fours years in high school but my last ride is the only one that left an impression.
We were leaving a party, I think to go to another party, and Max offered me a ride. I accepted and seeing that my buddy Ray occupied the front seat, I climbed into the back. Max pulled the car on to Oxford road and began heading towards town at a speed that was probably too fast for the narrow country road. It wasn’t until we were in town that Ray and I simultaneously remembered that our destination was in the opposite direction. Ray and I informed Max that he needed to turn around and that he was a retard. Max didn’t respond he simply floored the gas, yanked up his parking break, and cranked the wheel hard left sending us into a 180-degree spin that ended with us facing the direction of our destination. Max then laughed, floored the gas again, and shot down the road like an action movie chase. That was the last thing I remember.
When I awoke in the hospital a nurse told me that the car had flipped and that I had crushed a vertebrae in my neck. She also told me that I was in Baltimore and that I had to be airlifted from the crash site. I didn’t have much of a reaction to this news being that I couldn’t remember any crash or any car, or even my name or the year. When I was more lucid the doctors told me that if my broken vertebrate had just been a centimeter over into my spinal chord, I’d be dead or paralyzed, but I feel like doctors always say that. Instead I was in neck brace for a couple of months and I have some scars that will never go away.
Everyone asks me how I felt after the accident, if it made me really want to change my life. I’d like to say “yes,” I’d like to tell people that it gave me new lease on life or it really helped me find my faith. But the truthful and somewhat lame answer is that I didn’t feel anything after the accident, I didn’t feel blessed or that a higher power had intervened, I just saw myself as lucky.
Newspaper article of accident
I enjoyed the author's reaction to the accident at the end of the piece. It came across as authentic without any sentimentality. Good use of a link to the newspaper article.
ReplyDeleteI think this piece could benefit from being fleshed out, use of scene, etc. The topic of near-death experience can be re-visited in a new way with your rational, unsentimental tone. That is a point of view I would like to understand more if you feel there is more to develop with that.
ReplyDeletei would've enjoyed the piece more if it was written as an entire scene rather than a biography, a description, and a personal reflection. It was still an informative piece and the external links were well used.
ReplyDeleteI think that this has a lot of potential, mostly because your view on the accident is interestingly cavalier, and it is a refreshing perspective. But I also think that this has a bit of a five paragraph essay vibe-- you start, you talk about the accident, you talk about how you feel about it, and then it ends. I think this would be improved if you look at the accident through the prism of the carefree spirit of youth-- and focus more on how you still have that, because that, I think, is the real meat of the piece. I also agree with someone above me, great use of external links.
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